To Pray Or Not To Pray

The saying goes: "God giveth and God taketh away." Is it all random? Or is there a deep message that we can tap into for personal growth and actualization?

Harold is walking down a darkened alley, when he's suddenly confronted by two masked men carrying guns. Fearing for his life, Harold throws his hands heavenward and begins to pray, "God, save me, please save me! I'll do anything, God - I'll go to synagogue every day, I'll take that long-overdue trip to Israel, and I'll even give half my income to charity!"

At that moment, a police car pulls into the alley, and the thugs flee. Harold looks heavenward and says, "Never mind, God, I took care of it myself!"

ESSENCE OF PRAYER

This week's parsha describes how offerings brought to the Temple in Jerusalem were a primary means of connecting with God. Today however, our primary connection is through the medium of prayer. (For example, the Shacharit and Mincha services correspond to the morning and afternoon "Tamid" offerings.) Every Jew is his own miniature "Temple." No intermediary necessary.

And while God answers all prayers, sometimes the answer is "No." We may be asking for the wrong thing without realizing it. A good parent will not lend the car keys to a teenager who is not yet responsible enough to handle it. All the begging in the world will not get a good parent to change his mind.

But prayer is our opportunity to move beyond these limitations. The Hebrew word for prayer, "li-heet-pallel," comes from the root "pallel," which means to inspect. The prefix "li-heet" is the reflexive form - denoting an action that one does to oneself. Li-heet-pallel, therefore, is an act of personal introspection. When we pray, we look inside and ask, "What do I need to change about myself in order to get what I really want out of life?"

This process of self-transformation means that today I may no longer be the same person who God said "no" to yesterday.

Sometimes we only appreciate something when it's taken away. When we've had the flu and then recover, we appreciate what it means to be healthy. But we shouldn't have to get sick in order to appreciate our health!

Blessings are the Jewish version of "Stop and smell the roses." The Sages say that one way to guarantee good health is to say "Asher Yatzar" with sincerity. "Asher Yatzar" is the blessing that Jews says, believe it or not, after using the bathroom. We thank God for creating our bodies with a wondrously complex system of ducts and tubes. And we acknowledge that if any one of them were improperly ruptured or blocked, we could no longer stay alive. Saying this blessing with sincerity affirms our gratitude for good health.

We can learn our lesson without the experience of having it taken away.

APPRECIATE THE GIFTS

If prayer is solely for our benefit, then why does Jewish prayer always begin with praise of God?

One purpose of this praise is to sensitize us to God's awesome capacity to help. We take the time to recognize and appreciate all that He does for us.

And He does so much! We know that our parents love us because of all they've given us, yet God has given us gifts that are infinitely more valuable. If a human being would restore your eyesight, imagine the gratitude you'd feel? Yet God has given us eyes, ears, intelligence - life itself. This knowledge that the Almighty can do anything is what ultimately gives us the strength and resolve to push beyond our limits.

That's why when a Jew prays in the morning, he begins with blessings that acknowledge our eyesight, mobility, consciousness and freedom. These awaken our appreciation for all the gifts God has bestowed upon us and remind us of how much God loves us. When we appreciate what we have, God will want to give us more.

It's the same with a parent and child. If I give my daughter a new toy, and she grabs it without any appreciation, then I as a good parent should not give her any more toys until she appreciates what she already has! We can understand that the son of a billionaire would be spoiled if his parents gave him everything he needed without having to work for it.

The same is true of our relationship with God. Certainly He can give us whatever we need; God is infinitely richer and more powerful than the biggest billionaire. But since God has our best interests at heart, He wants us to grow, to earn it - and to become great.

SO MUCH FOOD, SO LITTLE TIME

This week's Parsha (Vayikra 7:11-15) discusses the Korbon Todah, the thanksgiving offering brought to Jerusalem by anyone who survives a dangerous situation - e.g. childbirth, recovering from a bad illness, arriving safely from an overseas journey. This thanksgiving offering consists of 40 loaves of bread, which the person then eats as a festive meal in commemoration of having been saved.

The Talmud notes two unusual characteristics of the thanksgiving offering that distinguishes it from other, similar offerings: (1) It involves an enormous quantity of food - 40 loaves, and (2) All the loaves must be consumed within an exceptionally short amount of time - less than 24 hours. Obviously, the person who brings this thanksgiving offering could never eat that much food in such a short time! So why would the Torah prescribe such parameters?

The answer is that the Torah wants to create a situation whereby someone will not only appreciate his good fortune, but will share that appreciation with others. With all this food to eat, he will be compelled to invite family and friends to share the story of how he was saved from danger.

Today, without our Holy Temple, we recite the thanksgiving blessing (Birkat HaGomel) in the synagogue during the Torah reading service.

Publicizing God's protection is us how we strengthen our connection and belief. This is the essence of Kiddush Hashem, the public sanctification of God's Name. After the coming of the Messiah and the perfection of the world, there will be no further need for offerings of atonement, because people will no longer sin. But there will always be thanksgiving offerings, because the human need to express gratitude is eternal.

TUNE OUT THE STATIC

If you want to build a relationship with God, you'll need a framework for the relationship. Friday evening is a good time to reduce the outside static and get in touch with your inner self. Don't watch any TV or listen to the radio. (And if you're really bold, unplug the phone.) You could invite some friends over, prepare a nice meal, light the Shabbat candles, and enjoy the solitude.

As for the prayer aspect: Any relationship is built on communication, and communication has to come from the heart. God yearns to give us the pleasure of connection. The Talmud says that God made Sarah, Rivka and Rachel barren, so that they would turn to Him in prayer. You can pray in any language. Aloud.

To help you start, here's an opening line, written by my cousin, Leibel Rudolph o.b.m.:

Dear God
Give me the courage to let go,
And let you in.
I know you love me.
And with your help,
I will find all the purpose, joy, and happiness<
You want me to have.

If anything starts happening, or if you want to talk more about prayer, feel free to email me.

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About the Author

Rabbi Shraga Simmons grew up trekking through snow in Buffalo, New York, enjoying summers as a tour guide at Niagara Falls. He holds a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and rabbinic ordination from the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. He is the co-founder of Aish.com, and founder of the Torah study site, JewishPathways.com. He is also the co-founder of HonestReporting.com, and author of "David & Goliath", the definitive treatment of media bias against Israel (2012). He lives with his wife and children in the Modi'in region of Israel.

I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!